


Five and a Half

by sareli



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 12:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sareli/pseuds/sareli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose wasn't sure if the Doctor was worth it anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five and a Half

**Author's Note:**

> went back through my ff account and found this. I actually like it a lot, so here it is, with minimal revision.

**Hour one**

With a crash and a horse’s whinny, the Doctor was gone, and Rose was left staring at the place where he had vanished. Suddenly, she felt alone, and it hit her with such a force that it brought tears to her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall, because he’d be back. She knew it.

After a while, she found a crate and sat down on it, staring at the floor. Mickey sat on the floor beside her, but after a while, he got bored and went poking around the ship.

“For what?” Rose asked him scathingly.

“I dunno.” Mickey shrugged his shoulders and vanished, just as the Doctor had before.

But at least she could still hear him.

* * *

 

**Hour two**

Rose didn’t move from the crate. What else was there to do? She checked her watch for the millionth time in five minutes. Only seventeen seconds had passed since she last did so. Mickey was still wandering about the ship.

She thought of that woman- Reinette, or Madame de Pompadour, whatever her real name was. The one that the Doctor had so eagerly chased after. The one that the Doctor preferred.

She had insisted that the Doctor was worth the monsters, and at the time, Rose had agreed with the woman. However, now that he had gone without even so much as a hasty goodbye, she wasn’t sure if the Doctor was worth it anymore.

Reinette had said it again, as she stepped back into her own time. “ _The Doctor is worth the monsters_.” She believed it just as fiercely as Rose had not too long before.

She was so many things, that Madame de Pompadour. According to the Doctor, she was a triple threat; beautiful, accomplished, and brilliant.

She was all of the things that Rose Tyler wasn’t.

* * *

 

**Hour three**

Bored and lonely, she leaned over and started doodling invisible shapes on the floor before her. She could see them in her mind’s eye, burning bright letters spelling out R-O-S-E T-Y-L-E-R and endless loops and other simple shapes.

Mickey returned, after having found another few body parts nestled into the ship’s wiring. He was still freaked out by it. He drew up his own crate beside Rose’s, and kept vigil with her.

“Rose, how are we gonna get out of this?”He asked, tracing a circle with his foot, round and round like a perpetual motion machine.

Dropping her face into her hands, Rose contemplated their options. They had the TARDIS, but, as Mickey had pointed out, the only man in existence who could fly it had gone swanning off to 18th century France. Fat lot of good that was.

They were on a spaceship, but it was partly constructed of hearts and eyeballs, and was run by droids that didn’t work. Said droids were also going after a random woman’s head because the ship was broken. Besides, it wasn’t like she or Mickey could fly it anyway. Did it even fly? Or did it just float? Sighing, she realized it didn’t matter.

She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. She’d never see her mother again. She’d never see _anyone_ again. Oh, God, they were really, truly alone, weren’t they? No other living, breathing things on board (unless the droids had installed a pair of lungs somewhere), no way home, and nobody to call for help. The Doctor had abandoned them.

Rose mentally put the finishing touches on a star.

“He’ll be back,” she said, wondering if she was trying to reassure Mickey or herself. Three hours ago, she would’ve firmly believed those words, but now she wasn’t so sure.

* * *

**Hour four**

Her mind wandered to the other Doctor- _her_ Doctor, with big ears and a leather jacket and that daft old face, and those cold blue eyes that melted like butter when turned on her. And her heart twisted because she _knows_ that he wouldn’t have done this to her.

The only time he’d ever really left her was to save her life. And he was willing to sacrifice his life, and his beloved TARDIS to do it. That Doctor, he had loved her, plain and simple. And she had started to think that this one loved her too, but now she didn’t know what to think.

She didn’t want to think this way, because it was awful and petty, but she did anyway.

“He wouldn’t have done this to me.” She mumbled aloud, and Mickey seemed to understand.

“I know, babe.”He opened his arms and let her fall into them, encircling her with a comforting embrace.

**_Hour four-and-a-half_ **

_The Doctor had finally returned from the 18 th century! It was her Doctor, with the blue eyes in soft-mode because he was looking right at her. He was painful and beautiful to look at._

_She ran to him and wrapped his arms around his middle._

_“I missed you,” she whispered into the leather of his coat._

_“And you’ll have to keep missing me,” he said softly, his old Northern accent pulling painfully at Rose’s heart. “I’m not coming back.”_

She woke up to tears streaming down her cheeks, and Mickey stroking her hair.

* * *

**Hour five**

She wept until she forgot what she was even crying about anymore.

It had started out because of that dream, and _I’m not coming back_ , and how she swore that she could still smell the familiar, leathery scent of his coat in the air. And then it was because she’d never be enough, not for the Doctor, and that no matter how hard she tried, he remained alone. And then she cried because they were stuck, with no chance of getting back home.

 _Is this where he leaves me?_ Rose thought in despair. _Is this where he finally leaves me behind like all the others?_

Then she cried for the girl standing alone in front of the big, unyielding wall that had swallowed up the one person she wanted to spend forever with.

* * *

**Hour six**

Only a few minutes after she had returned from washing her face in the TARDIS, the Doctor returned. She heard him before she saw him.

Her initial response was to shout at him and slap him and make him sorry for leaving them in the cold, dark spaceship all alone.

But then she saw his face, and was overcome with relief. He was back, he was safe, and he was not the dream Doctor, come back to haunt her. She threw her arms around him and held him close, never wanting to let go again.

“How long did you wait?” The Doctor asked, his arms tightening around her.

“Five and a half hours!” Rose announces giddily, elated that the count stopped there.

He released her. “Right, always wait five and a half hours, then.”

Then, he went to hug Mickey as well, but then changed his mind upon realizing that it was, in fact, _Mickey_ and shook the other man’s hand instead.

“Where’ve you been?” Rose asked, contemplating slipping her hand into his.

“Explain later. Into the TARDIS, be with you in a sec.”

Her heart sinks in her chest as he leaves once again. She already knew where he was going, and what he was doing. Sarah Jane’s words sprang unbidden into her mind.

“ _He likes to travel with an entourage._ ”

It seemed that the uncrowned Queen of France would be joining them.

Rose began to count again.


End file.
